New Recording/Video of Shrapnel

Daniel Varela sends us news from Buenos Aires of his exciting project to record Hugh Shrapnel’s massive Cantation II (1970), for any number of pianos. Varela has used four piano tracks, The whole recording is a little over 5 hours, with slight variations in time for each part. Can you imagine? 20 hours!

It’s now in mixing and all that good stuff, but Daniel sent us some pictures from the recording sessions. We’re looking forward to more of that Shrapnel-y goodness!

recording piano with scorestudio imagestudio piano

Cardew at ICA on YouTube

On 22 November 2009, a bunch of us got together to play some Cardew pieces at the ICA in London, as part of a conference on Cardew.

First, there’s a performance of Autumn 60, conducted by John Tilbury: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH593QaXS50

Second, we did Cardew’s The Great Learning, Paragraphs 3 and 6, directed by Dave Smith: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZAgM8dBc00

This is a good chance to see some of the British experimentalists in action: Dave Smith standing on a chair to announce The Great Learning, John White on euphonium, Chris Hobbs on laptop, Richard Ascough singing on P. 3, and the others. Enjoy!